b. dramatized the rising violence and chaos that accompanied his tenure
Ford also faced some intense personal scares while in office. In two incidents in 1975, just three weeks apart, someone tried to kill him. On September 5 in Sacramento, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme pointed a pistol at the president. Fromme was a member of the Manson Family cult, a criminal group implicated in several California murders. Although there was no bullet in the firing chamber when a Secret Service agent wrested the gun from her hands, Fromme was sentenced to life imprisonment. Seventeen days later in San Francisco, Sara Jane Moore (who had no connection to the Manson group) managed to fire a shot at Ford, but a bystander intervened and the bullet struck a wall, ricocheted off the curb, and hit a taxi driver in the groin. The two unsuccessful assassination attempts appeared unrelated to Ford's low popularity, but they dramatized the rising violence and chaos that accompanied his tenure.